Mohammed Jaber Al-Ansari, is a prominent Bahraini philosopher and political thinker, and an influential proponent of rational thinking in the 20th-century Arab World. He played a pivotal role in establishing the previously peripheral Persian Gulf region as an integral contributor to modern Arabic thought, on equal footing with other parts of the Arab World. His early work as a literary historian, and critic, instigated wide literary activity in his native Bahrain and in its surrounding Persian Gulf region. Al-Ansari was one of the early Arab intellectuals to delve into studying the East Asian experiences and draw comparisons with the Arab World. Life and work Al-Ansari was born in Bahrain in 1939 (then a British protectorate). Al-Ansari's first philosophical interests were shaped during the Nasserite 1950s, when the Arab World was in the midst of its struggle against colonialism and the fight for the creation of Pan-Arab Unity. Al-Ansari started to publish soon after he obtained his BA from the American University in Beirut in 1962. His early work covered historical and contemporary literary work in his native Bahrain and its neighboring countries. Compiled in one volume titled "Glimpses at the Gulf" (لمحات من الخليج), the volume sheds light on previously little known authors in this region because of its distance from the centers of Arab literary activity (essentially Cairo and Beirut were most Arabic publication originated.) In 1969, Al-Ansari co-founded Bahrain's Literary Association (أسرة الأدباء والكتاب) and became its first President. In the same year, he was appointed to the State Council (Bahrain's first national cabinet) which oversaw the country’s transition to independence from Great Britain. In 1971, Al-Ansari gave up his cabinet position to pursue his intellectual and academic career. Al-Ansari received his Ph.D. in 1979. His dissertation which was published later in a volume titled Arabic Though and the Struggle of Opposites formed the base for his first intellectual project. The volume reveals Al-Ansari’s strategy of thinking and brings to light the main philosophical themes that he resonated in his later work. In the following year, he published his major work, Transformation of Thought and Politics in the Arab East 1930-1970 (تحولات الفكر والسياسة في المشرق العربي 1930-1970), which won him the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science Award. This significant work had a profound impact on the re-orientation of the Twentieth Century Persian Gulf from a mere receiver of Arab intellectual products into a competent contributor